Going to the dogs.

Considering the size of the average hotel room, it’s amazing that New York City has any hotels that allow guests to bring their pets. But pet friendly ranks have grown in recent years.

The SoHo Grand has always been kind to pet lovers, possibly because the hotel is owned by the family that founded the Hartz Mountain pet supply company. Dogs stay free of charge, and the hotel was one of the first to send up a goldfish in a bowl to pet-loving guests. But this month the hotel unleashed its grandest pet friendly effort yet — an outdoor Dog Park next to the hotel that’s the exclusive domain of pets belonging to hotel guests.

With benches, potted trees and two bright-colored fire hydrants, the brick-lined park looks like it was designed by an architect who understands dogs and people. And privacy. A black iron gate keeps out non-registered guests (and pets) and gives the park the look of a compact private garden in London.

The bricks are the real deal, from a heritage standpoint. Prior to the dogs, the site was home to

Fence me in.

St. Alphonsus Liguori, a Catholic Church built in 1847 and torn down in 1981. The lot lay fallow all these years (the hotel arrived in 1996). But some of the original bricks survived and line the walls of the park.

The park looks like a splendid place to sip a coffee and catch some urban rays, whether you have a dog or not. And presumably, it will eventually get some four-legged traffic. (It’s been dog- and people-free every time I’ve stopped by.)

Handel’s “Rodrigo” at the Gershwin.

We’ll take a wild guess and assume that George Frederich Handel never dreamed his opera Rodrigo, written in 1707 when he was 22 years old, would have its North American premiere nearly three hundred years later in a hotel lobby.

But on May 21, 23 and 25, Handel’s fifth opera will be performed in the lobby of the Gershwin Hotel, a move that trumps the Met and every other opera house in the hemisphere.

The premiere comes almost a year to the day after Almira, Konigin von Castilien, Handel’s first opera, made its North American debut before an audience of 75 in the Gershwin lobby (Anthony Tommasini gave the production a thumbs up in The New York Times).

The person responsible for Handel’s long-overdue premieres is Jennifer Peterson, founder and director of operamission, a plucky pick-up company that stages old and new operas in concert settings. Make that unexpected settings, like Bryant Park, Brooklyn’s Fort Green and the Gershwin, though to be fair, a place called Gershwin should embrace music.

Rodrigo marks operamission’s 15th appearance at the Gershwin, which is renowned for its quirky/smart line-up of art exhibitions, theater, dance and music — from jazz and rock to classical. But this year is different. The hotel, famed for its relaxed, boho vibe and art world bona fides – the lobby boasted an original Andy Warhol Campbell Soup can – was sold last year to Triumph Hotels, whose properties include The Iroquois and the Belleclaire. Renovations are underway. The plan is to restore the hotel to celebrate its Beaux Arts architecture.

Is this the final aria for operamission and the myriad artists who have played the Gershwin? In a word, no, says Neke Carson, who has crafted the hotel’s envelope-pushing performance events for 12 years. “I’m still here, and I’m still the curator. And we’ll be doing the wonderful events we’ve always done,” he says.

That’s great news because the Gershwin is one of a kind (its creative roots extend to Warhol’s Factory). Operamission is unique, too. We caught up with Peterson, who once again will conduct the opera – a cast of six singers and 14 musicians — from her harpsichord in the middle of the lobby.

Why did you choose Rodrigo?

I want to stage all of Handel’s operas in the order he wrote them. We did his first last year, and the second, third and fourth have been lost. Handel composed Rodrigo, his fifth opera, during his early time in Rome. He was coming in from Germany and learning to write this different style of opera. It’s his first opera in Italian, in a style you don’t get to hear very much. It was like his graduate school dissertation. It had its premiere at the Teatro del Cocomero in Florence, and it’s been done in lots of places in Europe.

Why did it take so long to cross the Atlantic?

There are things in it that American audiences were not used to. There are three roles written for male sopranos – two were written for castrato. Today we have countertenors to sing these parts. And the training has vastly improved over the last 15 years. You hear that range in pop music, in a lot of Motown. But you need special training in operatic music to let the voice sustain that pitch.

What interests you about Handel’s early operas?

You see his development as a composer. You hear snippets of music that recur in later operas. You hear things in The Messiah that are hinted at in the early work.

The Gershwin lobby, which seats 75, isn’t the Met. How did the performance space shape this production?

It’s a site-specific opera, and the space defines our limitations. We’ve gone with a concert approach this year. The focus is on the musical intention. The orchestra, which is all early instruments, is in the center of the room. And costumes are very simple.

You’ve got an impressive line-up of talent.

Disella Larusdottir is an Icelandic soprano with a light, sweet voice who sings the part of Rodrigo’s wife Esilena. She recently made her debut at the Met as a Rhine maiden in Das Reingold. She and Madeline Bender, a soprano with a warm voice who plays Florinda, the young beauty who wants vengeance, are both very glamorous and complement each other. Nicholas Tamagna, who sings Rodrigo, is a countertenor on the rise. John Carlo Pierce, who portrays Florinda’s brother Guilano, is a tenor who has sung at the Bavarian State Opera. Daniel Bubeck, who plays Fernando, Rodrigo’s general, is a countertenor who wrote his  doctoral dissertation on Handel castrato roles. And Christopher Newcomer, who is also a countertenor, plays Evanco, who’s in love with Florinda. He recently made his Broadway debut as Mary Sunshine in Chicago.

What about the audience? Does performing at a hotel bring in a different crowd?

Because it’s at a hotel, people staying there or stopping by the café find out about the performance and get interested. It’s definitely a mixed audience and not the same people you see all the time at early music concerts.

Performances at 7:30 pm May 21, 23 and 25. Tickets cost $75 (premiere front row seats), $60 (general seating), and $40 (students with ID), available from Brown Paper Tickets. The Gershwin Hotel, 7 East 27th Street between Fifth and Madison avenues. 212 545-8000.

Prosecco and Ice Pop.

The calendar says it’s spring, even when it’s contradicted by chilly breezes and overcast skies. No matter.

Seasonal roof bars observe time, not temperature when choosing to open, and this week the Loopy Doopy Bar atop the Conrad New York, flung open its terrace above the Hudson for its second season.

With jaw-drop views of the river and the Statue of Liberty, Loopy Doopy – named for the Sol Lewitt mural in the lobby, not the way you feel after a couple of drinks – was one of last summer’s hottest bars. It’s back with a new line-up of summer drinks and, last year’s hit, Prosecco on tap.

Also new: five new multi-proof flavors for the bar’s signature libation – Prosecco and Ice Pops. This childhood-channeling concoction with kick consists of a boozy popsicle plopped into a goblet of Prosecco, stick and all. Morello cherry (10 Cane Rum) is the fledgling season’s big seller so far – “it’s sweet,” explained a bartender. Pina colada (Malibu Coconut) and Orangeade (Cointreau) are the other sweeties. Lime Margarita (Suaza Blue Agave Tequila) and Appeltini (Absolut Hibiscus Vodka) taste dry and tart – by popsicle standards.

Make that ice pop standards. Popsicle is a trademarked moniker, so the drink was renamed for the 2013 season. Still more that’s new: the $18 price. “It’s an experience, not a drink,” quipped a friend. So it is, especially at sunset on a balmy night – when things finally warm up.

Kristen McGinnis’s lacquered dining room.

The best hotel rooms are the ones filled with things you want to steal – like decorating ideas.

A great decorator show house is even better. The designers, of course, want you to hire them, but they have to put their ideas out there to lure you in. And this year’s Kips Bay Decorator Show House, the biggie of the bunch in New York City, is jam-packed with ideas ripe for the plucking.

After last year’s foray to a chilly high-rise condominium overlooking the Hudson on Riverside Boulevard, this year’s show house returns to more familiar ground, namely a svelte, late 19th-century townhouse on the East Side.  We found ten ideas to tweak, transplant – or just dream about – in almost any kind of abode.

A room without curtains.

+ Lose the curtains Curtains can be the decorating equivalent of gray hair – certain rooms just look sleeker, hipper and more up-to-date without them. Consider designer James Huniford’s airy atrium bordered with a towering wall of windows (see the start of the windows behind the wing chair, left). Instead of using fabric or shades, Huniford blunted the impact of all that glass by applying decorative tape in subtle geometric shapes that give the appearance of frosted glass patterns. The result: the designs blunt the monotony of all that glass, and the room gains a modicum of privacy.

Curtained wall.

+ Curtain a wall Curtains still have their place – just not necessarily in front of windows. Designer Andrew Suvalsky glammed up a sitting area by hanging a moody blue curtain on the wall behind the sofa (left). Besides channeling the heat of a smokey film noir, a curtain is an elegant way to cover a wall that’s cracked, uneven or pocked. To keep things interesting, Suvalsky positioned a large painting in front of the curtain.

Small room, big prints on the wall.

+ Put a big print in a small room  In a space not much bigger than a walk-in closet – albeit with a big window — Palm Beach designer Stephen Mooney enveloped the room, and all who set foot in it, in a big-print wallpaper — a floral, no less, in shades of honey, white and gray (left). The trick is an artful use of scale – small prints channel Louisa May Alcott (in a bad way) — and color –bright colors call to mind the 1970s (also in a bad way). But the big print in bold light hues is just right and lets this little upstairs lair breathe.

Eve Robinson’s lacquered ceiling.

+ Go glossy Designers love wallpaper. But those opting for paint finished their show house walls in mega-gloss lacquer in high-impact colors, a near-foolproof – and less costly — recipe for instant glamour.  Designer Kristen McGinnis dramatized her dining room walls with a deep high-gloss blue/green visually balanced by a floor covered in pale rugs (see photo at top of story). And designer Eve Robinson polished the ceiling of her white-walled family room in lilac, so glossy it almost reflects the room below (above).

Tweaking the pillows.

+ Have a Martha moment  Handcrafts can be a good thing. Designer Jack Levy could have plopped a throw pillow on the  fabric club chair in his Fornasetti-wallpapered living room. Instead, he appliqued the colorful pattern used on the sofa’s pillows onto the chair’s back cushion (above). The result: an eye-catching way to let a sofa and chairs converse.

Back to the future: time travel bedroom.

+ Indulge in time travel There’s a big difference between a room that looks dated and one that artfully channels the past. File British-born LA designer Kathryn M. Ireland’s bedroom in the latter category. Ireland went with retro elements, like an oriental rug and a fancy Victorian bed. But a faded rug and festoons of of updated chintz freshen things up.  Also refreshing: artwork that ranges from abstract birds opposite the bed to the cheeky photo of Ireland sporting nothing but a sheet and a smile, a wink at Ingres’ “Le Grand Odalisque.”

Sara Story’s candle-filled matte black fireplace.

+ Put out the fire But keep the fireplace and make it unexpected. In his wallpapered living room, Levy blanketed the fireplace opening in faux bricks set in a herring bone pattern and shielded it with a Plexiglas screen. Designer Sara Story painted the original mantel matte black in her crisp, Cubist living room and filled the fireplace with sculpted black candles (left). And Robinson lined hers in polished stainless steel and adorned it with silver blown-glass logs (wood logs are stacked slyly in a built-in alcove nearby).

Sexy sleek.

+ Make the guest room multitask Turning a guest room into a lounge or library isn’t new, but designer Louis Garcia-Maldonado’s sexy/sleek lounge suite shows how to do it right. The mammoth upholstered sofa doubles as a queen-size bed, easily swathed in sheets. The back and armrest are the perfect height for brunch or cocktail party guests to perch. The walls, upholstered in sueded leather “bricks,” form a sensual/serene backdrop for sleep, play or curling up with a drink or a book. And the moiré curtains edged in jewel trim bring a flirtatious femininity to the moneyed metrosexual surroundings.

Up on the roof.

+ Bathe alfresco What’s the best way to enjoy a pocket roof garden high above a quiet East Side street? Architect West Chin suggests a soak, with or without bubbles. He planted an egg-shape tub behind a wall on the roof;  the bather can see out but, presumably, the top-floor neighbors can’t see in. Besides the tops of the nearby townhouses the bather can gaze over at a rooftop pond stocked with Koi and waterlilies, a fireplace stuffed with succulents and a side table topped by a rubber duck.

In glorious black and white.

+ Steal from a hotel And turn it into an homage, as Story did with the showstopping black and white bathroom visible from her sitting room. Like the game-changing bathrooms Andree Putman designed for the Morgan Hotel in 1984, Story’s bathroom is blanketed in humble four-inch black and white ceramic tiles. Besides swanky good looks, the tile offers bang for the buck (Putman deliberately chose the simple but graphic tiles — favored by penny-pinching landlords — to keep costs down when she designed the hotel). Nearly 30 years later the look still works, something you can’t say that about everything from the 80s.

Sharp Townhouse, 161 East 64th Street between Lexington and Third avenues; 212 452-2117; admission $35 (proceeds benefit the nonprofit Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club). The show house is open daily through June 4, 2013.

The Plaza.

As The Great Gatsby, the most hyped movie since, well, Iron Man 3, steamrolls into theaters, two hotels are proudly trumpeting their Gatsby connections.

Most obvious is The Plaza. When Daisy suggests Gatsby, Tom, Jordan and Nick drive to Manhattan, they beeline for the Plaza, a favorite of F. Scott Fitzgerald and wife Zelda. “They lived at the Biltmore but drank cocktails at the Plaza – orange blossoms spiked with bootleg gin,” writes Sally Cline, author of Zelda: Her Voice in Paradise, in New York magazine. Ernest Hemingway once told Fitzgerald to “leave his liver to Princeton and his heart to the Plaza” – or so the Plaza website tells us.

The Plaza appears as a high-profile supporting player in the movie, even though the interior scenes depicting the hotel were recreated in a studio. That hasn’t stopped the hotel from happily linking its fortunes to the film – and Fitzgerald. Consider the newly unveiled Fitzgerald Suite, designed by Catherine Martin, the movie’s production and costume designer (she also decorated the sparkly Gatsby Holiday Tree in

The Fitzgerald Suite.

the Plaza’s lobby last December). A few of the items you’ll find in the suite are the complete works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, photos of Scott and Zelda and Deco-esque furniture designed by RH Restoration Hardware, all yours for $2,795 a night (the hotel throws in a bottle of champagne, Gatsby-inspired cocktails for two in the Rose Club, breakfast for two in the Palm Court and a set of Plaza ‘his & her’ flasks).

Other Plaza tie-ins are Prohibition-themed drinks at the Rose Club, a Fitzgerald Tea in the Palm Court (curried lobster salad, deviled quail egg salad) and assorted foods riffing the Roaring 20s in the Plaza Food Halls.

Farther downtown  The Mansfield, a Beaux Arts boutique hotel, boasts a subtler but equally potent strain of Gatsby cred. Max Gerlach, believed to be the inspiration for the character of Jay Gatsby, lived the last years of his life at the Mansfield, a modest men’s residential hotel at the time.

The Mansfield (without the scaffolding).

Gerlach spent years selling used cars in Queens, a cut above Wilson’s Garage but not exactly Long Island high life. The main evidence of his literary import is a note signed by him that Fitzgerald squirreled away in a scrapbook : “Enroute from the coast – Here for a few days on business – How are you and the family old sport?”

Back-up evidence comes from Fitzgerald scholar Arthur Mizener, who claimed that Gatsby was based on a Long Island bootlegger that Fitzgerald knew only slightly and that Zelda said late in her life that “this was a Teutonic-featured man named von Guerlach.”

So what do we know of Gerlach, with or without the von? A shadowy character, he may have been born Max Stork, he served in World War I, and he most likely was a bootlegger before turning to used cars. He was also a fabulist, embroidering his university pedigree, elevating his military rank and embellishing his name with that aristocratic von. When his car business tanked in 1939, he shot himself in the head at the Greenwich Village apartment of a girlfriend. He lived but was blinded and eventually checked into the Mansfield, staying until his death in 1958.

And the Mansfield? The elegant brick and limestone building you see today, albeit under some scaffolding, was designed in 1890 as a stylish residence for men – a sort of Barbizon for bachelors — by John Renwick, famed for flashier piles like the New York Public Library and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Early guests included the painter John Butler Yeats, father of the poet William.

The surroundings weren’t so polished by the time Gerlach showed up but that was then. A

The Mansfield Library Lounge.

deep-dish renovation in 2007 spiffed things up, including guest room bathrooms and the handsome wood-paneled library lounge. Rooms then as now came in a variety of sizes from extremely small to suites. Did Gerlach live large or in one of the teeny rooms? No one at the hotel could tell me.

That hasn’t stopped the hotel from celebrating its Gatsby cred. The hotel’s M Bar offers Gatsby-inspired drinks including updated riffs on Gimlets and Sidecars and a Live Like Gatsby package – two Gatsby drinks in the bar, a written guide to Gatsby’s New York, including 1920s architectural sites and a roundup of modern speakeasies, and a copy of the novel. Rooms start at $219.

The Plaza, 768 Fifth Avenue at 59th Street; 212 759-3000.

The Mansfield, 12 West 44th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues; 212 277-8700.

Chef Brian Wieler and his arugula planter box.

The answer is on your plate or in your glass if you order an arugula salad or a muddled-mint mojito at LCL, the hotel restaurant and bar.

Last summer the Westin Grand Central turned its rooftop into a modest organic Eden suspended 41 stories in the air. And this year the fleet of 11 dirt-filled planters and four fat barrels are back in business, bearing fruit – and vegetables and herbs – destined for hotel guests once again.

“You can’t get more local than this,” says Executive Chef Brian Wieler, who plans to shape his menus around what’s blooming on the roof. “I come up here daily and water it,” he adds.

For a growing number of New York hotels that forgo a roof bar, a roof garden has become the

Fresh picked.

go-to accoutrement (the Waldorf-Astoria and Intercontinental New York Barclay supplement their planters with huge hives of bees). The rewards are obvious: besides a ready source of fresh-picked produce, roof gardens help improve air quality by generating oxygen through photosynthesis  and lower surface temperatures, reducing solar radiation.

They also offer the hotel bragging rights. In an ultra-urban setting – the Chrysler Building is so close it’s almost a scarecrow — Wieler sounds like a Vermont farmer, praising his arugula (“some of the best we’ve ever had”) and shaking his head over his legumes (“maybe next year”).

New York isn’t the San Joaquin Valley, but the rooftop growing season is surprisingly long. Following a cold winter, Wieler waited until Earth Day to plant this year’s crops. He expects the lettuce and kale to last into September and pumpkins to sprout in the fall. What he won’t try again: watermelons. “They were the one thing that didn’t work last year.”

So forget watermelon mojitos. But the mint is doing beautifully this year, as are thyme, oregano, basil and cilantro. And Wieler has high hopes for yellow squash, zucchini, peppers and heirloom tomatoes. “You can really taste the difference between tomatoes grown in a greenhouse and tomatoes grown up here,” he says.

Westin New York Grand Central, 212 East 42nd Street, between Second and Third avenues. (212) 490-8900. For a look at the roof 24/7, check out the hotel’s webcam.

But it was a big hit in hotel rooms last month, coming in first with pay-to-view hotel audiences in the US and Canada as well as New York City.

What else were hotel guests watching during the cruelest month? As always, our Hotel Viewer Top Ten culled from more than 1.5 million rooms comes courtesy of LodgeNet, provider of in-room hotel entertainment in the US And Canada.

The US and Canada

1) Jack Reacher

2) Identity Thief

3) Django Unchained

4) Silver Linings Playbook

5) A Good Day to Die Hard

6) Zero Dark Thirty

7) This is 40

8) Gangster Squad

9) Safe Haven

10) Parker

New York City

1) Jack Reacher

2) Identity Thief

3) Silver Linings Playbook

4) Zero Dark Thirty

5) A Good Day to Die Hard

6) Django Unchained

7) Gangster Squad

8) This is 40

9) Broken City

10) Parker

Now playing — or coming soon — to hotel rooms are Oz, the Great and Powerful; Snitch; Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters; Jack the Giant Slayer and Admission.

Opening Celebration.

They skipped the bells, whistles and champagne last September when JW Marriott took over management of the Essex House, the gracious 1931 tower overlooking Central Park and operated most recently by Dubai-based Jumierah Hotels.

Last night they made up for it.

For three and a half hours, the ballroom was a party with, well, bells and whistles and champagne. Jon Bon Jovi, looking almost ageless in an unbilled appearance, sang six songs and declared he had stayed at the hotel “many, many times.” A phalanx of former Knicks, including current assistant coach Herb Williams, stood heads and shoulders above the crowd. Actors Danny Aiello (Moonstruck) and Brian Baumgartner (The Office) provided a dash of movie cred.

The hotel showed off its catering chops with one-bite party nibbles — lamb meatballs, shrimp tempura, blackberry jellies.

And in case you forgot The Great Gatsby is premiering in a little over a week, a specialty

New furniture in the lobby.

cocktail called the Art Deco Daiquiri was the top pour (Mount Gay Black Barrel Rum, Cointreau, lemon juice, kiwi slices, cucumber) — though be fair, the Essex House is the real Deco deal.

Outside the ballroom the 509-room hotel looked spiffy, hardly a surprise. Jumeirah poured $90 million into upgrading the property during the years it oversaw it; Chicago-based Strategic Hotels & Resorts, the new owners, felt it necessarily to invest a modest $18.3 for branding materials, public space improvements and splashy new marquees, complete with the JM Marriott griffin, at the Central Park South and 58th Street entrances.

The lobby has subtly become more American, less Dubai. New high-backed white leather slipper sofas stand near the classic Deco check-in desk. Also new: lobby art created by a

Essex House roses.

quartet of emerging artists chosen by Christie’s, the hotel’s new arts curator. It’s nice to know the Essex House custom of featuring rotating shows of commissioned art will continue under the new management (Jumeirah kept an in-house curator on staff). The current works are on view through October.

My favorite grace note was a witty display of long-stemmed red roses arranged by uber-florist Jane Packer to recreate the hotel’s iconic ESSEX HOUSE neon sign on top of the building. It won’t last nearly as long as the sign, so I took a picture.

JW Marriott Essex House New York, 160 Central Park South; 212 267-0300.

Be seated.

For years the lobby at the Belleclaire bothered me.

The Belleclaire was the W of its day, as cool as they came in 1903. The hotel occupies a spooky/gorgeous brick and limestone pile architect Emory Roth appears to have dreamed up in a hallucinogenic haze. Carved Roman goddesses gaze down from the balconies. Mark Twain and Maxim Gorky signed the guestbook.

But times change. The hotel lost its cool, spiraled downward into the ranks of Single Room Occupancy and bubbled up as a budget hostel. In 2008 came a clean sweep. The Belleclaire refurbished its rooms (wood floors, red tufted leather headboards, new bathrooms), opened a fitness center and raised its aspirations (the rates went up, too).

But somehow no one thought – or budgeted – a lobby renovation. The space was as distinctive

Before — the unrenovated lobby.

as a Motel 6 and as ungainly as a room that looked like it was missing its other half. About the best thing you could say was free newspapers were always stacked on the coffee table.

But that changed earlier this year. Though scaffolding still embraces the building’s entrance the lobby is finished at last. And it’s a beauty.

The lobby is twice as big as before and looks like at long last it can breathe. The designers kept the best of the old, namely the faded mosaic tile floor, and added wood paneling, a skylight and a colossal chandelier that manages to look retro and new at once.

After: the room gets roomier.

With three seating areas it’s an inviting place to stop by, check your messages or scan the headlines (the coffee tables are new and improved but newspapers are still stacked). And the sofas are comfy, from the buttery bourbon leather beneath a big mirror to the mile-long tufted velvet number near the elevators.
The latter has a curvaceous back, and like most of the furniture spins tradition.

I like the neo-traditional vibe. The Belleclaire resides in an old building, and the lobby respects its past while tweaking it. My favorite detail is the wall of shadowboxes separating the lobby from the elevators. They’re filled with early 20th-century memorabilia – top hats, typewriters, pipes, photographs and hatpins. I couldn’t find any copies of Huck Finn or The Lower Depths, but maybe eventually.

There’s also a bar that looks great but doesn’t serve drinks at the moment. Definitely eventually, according to the desk attendant.

For now, drinks or no drinks, the Belleclaire lobby rocks — and that’s something I never expected to say.

Hotel Belleclaire, 250 West 77th Street at Broadway; 212 362-7700.

Step this way to the Bombshell cast party.

The ratings may be tanking, but someone on the production end of Smash, NBC’s Broadway soap, has a wicked sense of humor.

To boil things down if you don’t follow the show, in Episode 12, Bombshell, a musical about the life of Marilyn Monroe, opens at last to thunderous applause and, alas, mixed reviews.

But the evening’s real action unfolds at the cast party, a star-drenched affair set in a palace of a room that looks like a set from The Great Gatsby. Guests with mega-voices (and mega-looks) step through a pair of glass doors labeled C Hotel in swirly letters and find themselves in a forest of soaring balconies, glittering chandeliers, white tablecloths and gilded everything.

Logical candidates might be the Carlton, a good-looking historic hotel that’s appeared frequently on the show. Or the Carlyle, a bonafide glamour pit, albeit a bit far uptown.

But no, it’s the Hotel Carter, the Times Square flophouse, er, budget property ranked near the top of TripAdvisor’s Dirtiest Hotels in America list for years. “I had no idea the interior of that rape villa was so gorgeous,” writes blogger Annoying Actor Friend. Me, neither.

We know the party is at the Carter because a pivotal scene is shot under the hotel’s big neon

The glammed up Carter as seen on Smash.

marquee, its orange and blue lights glowing with a perfection I’ve never seen. Following an argument between two pivotal characters, one saunters down West 43rd Street. The other returns to the festivities behind the big glass doors.

On the off-chance I was missing something I stopped by the Carter. The marquee was unchanged since the last time I’d seen it, ie big fields of lights were still burned out. (Smash photoshops.)

The Carter lobby.

And inside? No soaring balconies and definitely, no gilt. The lobby looks cluttered, tired and badly lighted, with an acoustic tile ceiling and Soviet-style marble wall tiles. A man in a white shirt at a podium asks to see room keys before admitting you, but I slipped in behind a pair of Romanian backpackers and found a spot on an inky green, faux utra-suede sofa that was missing a back cushion.

On an identical sofa to my right a barefoot woman in a lavender bomber jacket snored softly. A couple in T-shirts and jeans indulged in public shows of affection on the sofa opposite mine, not far from a large garbage can. Looking up I caught our reflection in one of the ceiling mirrors framed in colorful Christmas lights. They’ve been there for years.

But big improvements could be seen in the entry. The blood-red carpeting is gone, exposing

The renovated Carter entry.

a clean metal staircase, visible behind Katherine McPhee and Jeremy Jordan in their scene outside the hotel. Better still, the ceiling’s acoustic tiles are history, replaced by a plaster ceiling with a thick moldings and a roundel.

The Carter won’t appear in House Beautiful any time soon. But it wasn’t as overtly dirty and scary as I’ve seen it on previous visits. It’s been six years, after all, since a cleaning lady found the body of a young woman, strangled, under a bed.

The Carter was never plush, like the Waldorf, which also opened in 1930. Originally called the Hotel Dixie, the hotel housed a bus depot in its basement. Rooms cost $2.50 a night.

Rooms today go for around $90 a night, some $300 less than at the Westin down the block. The location is as good as it gets if you want Times Square.

That’s good enough for some. “Superb value and location,” writes a visitor from Birmingham, England who awarded the place four stars on TripAdvisor. (Not everyone agrees. “Grossest hotel I’ve ever stayed at,” counters a visitor from Las Vegas, who grudgingly gave the place one star. “Ya get what ya pay for,” chimes in another English visitor.)

So what were Smash’s production scouts thinking? Maybe they wanted location cred. But maybe they were just after a rib-poke to knowledgeable viewers.

Still, if anyone out there books a room at the Carter based on what they saw on Smash, they’re in for a shock.